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"In a big setback to Donald Trump's Ukraine peace efforts, Russia has hardened its stance on Donbas ahead of the tripartite talks in the United Arab Emirates. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow's demand that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbas region. The Russian official's remark comes amid Trump saying that both Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky had agreed to a deal."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s latest drone and missile attacks had left more than one million consumers without electricity in Kyiv, with thousands of apartment blocks also losing heating during freezing winter temperatures. In a rare wartime admission, Zelenskyy criticised the performance of Ukraine’s air force against Russian Shahed drones, despite the availability of Western-supplied interceptors and F-16 fighter jets. Moscow has escalated strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, while Kyiv has urged Western allies to urgently deliver air defense missiles and military support.

The Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin has been invited to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, set up last week with the intention that it would oversee a ceasefire in Gaza. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Monday that Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, before giving its response. The claim of an invitation comes with Putin showing no signs of ending his invasion of Ukraine, in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and Russian troops have carried out atrocities against civilians. The Russian president has repeatedly rejected proposals...

Russia launched a barrage of ⁠drone strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure overnight on Monday, cutting off power in five regions across the country amid freezing temperatures and high demand, Ukrainian officials said. The Ukrainian air force said that Russian troops had launched 145 drones. Air defense units shot ‍down 126 of them, it said. "As of this morning, consumers in ‍Sumy, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv regions are without power," the energy ministry said in a statement. "Emergency repair work is underway ⁠if the security situation allows." In the southern Odesa region, energy and gas infrastructure was damaged, the regional...

Pro-Scottish independence accounts on X have gone dark after Iran's Internet shutdown - after experts exposed their links to the regime in Tehran. Multiple accounts, which regularly pumped out pro-independence messages, abruptly stopped posting on January 8 - the date the Iranian authorities began their blackout in a bid to quell nationwide protests. The profiles claimed to be ordinary Scottish people, with names including 'Scottish Lad' Jake and 'Proud Scottish lass' Fiona.

Two people were ⁠killed and dozens more wounded in a mass Russian drone attack across Ukraine overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday, as U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators hashed out a post-war plan in the latest round of ‍peace talks. Moscow has stepped up a winter campaign ‍of strikes on the Ukrainian energy system while also waging a battlefield offensive as Kyiv faces U.S. ⁠pressure to secure peace in the nearly four-year-old war. Zelenskyy said the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa regions were ​targeted in an attack that included more than 200 drones. The military said 30 strikes...

Ukraine is enduring one of the harshest winters in its modern history as relentless Russian strikes cripple the country’s energy infrastructure, leaving millions without reliable heat or electricity. With nighttime temperatures in Kyiv dropping below -20C, rolling blackouts and heating outages have become a daily reality—even in the capital. Speaking to News in Depth on TVP World, Marta Shokalo, editor-in-chief of BBC News Ukraine, described conditions as unprecedented. “We never, ever had winters like this,” she said, noting that many families are leaving Kyiv temporarily as apartments struggle to stay above freezing. While some Ukrainians have relocated to western cities...

President Zelensky has called Ukraine's air defence supplies "insufficient", having revealed several systems were "without missiles" until Friday morning. "I can say this openly because today I have those missiles," the president said, adding that Ukraine had received a "substantial package" earlier in the day. His comments follow days of intense Russian bombardment of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, leaving thousands of people without heating and electricity during a bitterly cold winter. Schools in Kyiv will shut until February, the capital's mayor has announced, as the city continues to face severe energy shortages amid temperatures which have dropped as low as -19C....

KYIV, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A majority of Ukrainians would strongly oppose withdrawing troops from the part of the eastern Donetsk region still controlled by Kyiv in exchange for European and U.S. security guarantees, a poll released on Friday indicated. Ukraine, wary of unmet commitments in the past, is pushing for legally binding security guarantees to prevent any future Russian aggression.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov says 200,000 soldiers are absent without official leave — AWOL — and that 2 million are "wanted" for avoiding military service. "I don't want to be a populist — I want to be a realist," Fedorov said. "The Ministry of Defense is coming into my hands with a [$6.9 billion] shortfall, 2 million Ukrainians who are wanted and 200,000 who are AWOL," Fedorov said Wednesday in an address to Parliament. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Fedorov, 34, at the start of the year. The former head of Ukraine's digital transformation policies is credited with spearheading the...

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday proposed appointing First Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine's new defense minister, praising his abilities in developing the drones and digitization needed for the country's defense. Fedorov also served as minister of digital transformation and his appointment must be ​approved by parliament. He is to replace Denys Shmyhal. "Mykhailo is deeply engaged in the 'drone line' initiative and works very effectively ⁠on the digitalization of state services and processes," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. "Together with all our military personnel, military ​command, national weapons manufacturers and Ukraine's partners, we must implement changes...

KYIV, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday Kyiv was discussing with Washington a possible presence of U.S. troops in Ukraine as part of security guarantees, and also raised what he called a faked attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin's residence. Zelenskiy told the media in a WhatsApp chat that Kyiv was committed to continuing talks on how to end the war triggered by Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion and he was ready to meet Putin in any format.U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he and Zelenskiy were "maybe very close" to an agreement to end...

Russian forces appear close to being pushed out of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupyansk, with only a small number of isolated troops remaining and even pro-Kremlin voices acknowledging the setback, according to a report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to dash to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate for an urgent meeting, just days after declaring in a Christmas message that he hoped Vladimir Putin would perish. It comes as the Russian dictator suffered a humiliating Christmas Day defeat after Ukrainian forces took back full control of a city the Kremlin had claimed two months ago. Ukrainian media reports suggest the high-stakes meeting with Trump could take place as soon as December 28, if final arrangements are agreed. The Kyiv leader confirmed that preparations are underway after receiving an update from his chief negotiator, Rustem...

‘Ze’ has gone overboard with his latest remarks.For four years, Volodymyr Zelensky has been painted by the MSM as a heroic ‘defender of democracy’, a ‘present-day Winton Churchill’, and any questioning of him was surely to be described as the work of Putin’s shills and puppets.But that was then – and this is now, when Zelensky has been revealed as a failing leader of an incredibly corrupt country rife with real-life Nazis, and dealing with an alleged nasty drug habit.Citizens of the western countries now know that much of their taxpayer money sent to the Kiev regime was stolen by...

In the United States, several transcripts of conversations between Russia's leader Vladimir Putin and former US president George Bush have been published, in which Putin argued that Ukraine is an artificial state with a fragmented society and warned of a long-term confrontation with the West if Ukraine were admitted to NATO.Source: European Pravda with reference to the non-governmental research institution the National Security ArchiveDetails: In a conversation dated 16 June 2001, Putin, speaking in a passage about the need for honesty in relations and saying that he senses the mood of Russian society well, spoke about his disappointment with the...

KYIV, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces have pulled out of the embattled eastern town of Siversk, Kyiv's military said on Tuesday, as Russian troops wage a battlefield offensive aimed at threatening key cities critical to Ukraine's defences in the east.The fall of Siversk comes with Ukraine under U.S. pressure to quickly negotiate peace in the nearly four-year-old war triggered by Russia's invasion, and puts Russian forces closer to the hub of Sloviansk, some 30 km (20 miles) to the west.The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.Sloviansk is a...

Stanislav Orlov, the founder of the Russian reconnaissance and sabotage brigade “Espanola”, has been killed in Russia, Militarnyi reported on December 19, citing Russian war correspondents and statements from the unit itself. According to information published by pro-Russian military bloggers, Orlov, known by the callsign “Spaniard,” died from gunshot wounds sustained during his detention. He was reportedly accused of illegally misappropriating 1.5 billion rubles (approximately $18.5 million). The pro-Kremlin outlet Mash claimed that Orlov had been in a coma for several days prior to his death, though the exact cause of the coma was not disclosed. Orlov arrived in the...

MOSCOW (AP) — A car bomb killed a Russian general on Monday, the third such killing of a senior military officer in a year. Investigators said Ukraine may be behind the attack. Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died from his injuries, said Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, the nation’s top criminal investigation agency. “Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrenko said. Since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine nearly...

European Union leaders have struck a late-night deal to lend Ukraine €90bn (£79bn; $105bn) over the next two years, after failing to agree on using frozen Russian assets. Ukraine was set to run out of cash by next spring, and European Council chief António Costa said the loan would be paid back only when Russia paid reparations for its full-scale war. "We committed, we delivered," said Costa, while Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Svyrydenko praised the deal as "a decisive step for economic resilience". A bid to use €210bn in Russian cash frozen in the EU, mainly in Belgium, ultimately failed...